Here's an old chestnut which needs cracking with a bloody great sledgehammer.

English players are overpriced. The domestic market is inflated. You’ll ­always get better value if you shop abroad.

It’s a cliche which has become ­accepted wisdom among managers, owners, directors and scouts of most Premier League clubs.

And like most cliches, it’s a product of lazy thinking.

It was sad to hear Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins, one of football’s more enlightened boardroom operators, ­trotting out these same old lines this week when Blackpool had quoted him £8million for England Under-21 winger Tom Ince.

Sure, Swansea have mined some Spanish gems, not least the snip of the century in £2m Michu.

Yet how about the British players who won Swansea promotion and have ­continued to thrive in the top flight?

Wales captain Ashley Williams, once of Stockport, now coveted by Arsenal. Leon Britton, a fantastic technically-gifted English midfielder, who had to play in all four divisions before reaching the Premier League in his late 20s. And Nathan Dyer, snapped up from third-flight Southampton in 2009, a winger who was man of the match when Swansea won their first major trophy in the Capital One Cup final.

Had Swansea been an established top-flight club, would none of these lower-league operators have been worth a gamble? According to Jenkins, no.

Thankfully, it seems Swansea’s bitter rivals Cardiff will take a punt on Ince.

Late last season, Rodriguez was ­tearing it up, hugely impressive in ­victories over Manchester City and ­Chelsea, as he moved into England reckoning.

When British players emerge in the Premier League, they frequently have to earn their sides promotion from the Championship first, like Rodriguez’s Saints team-mates Rickie Lambert and Jack Cork. Or, like Rodriguez and full-back Nathaniel Clyne, get a call from a newly-promoted club who understand the English market.

Crystal Palace raised eyebrows this week when they shelled out £6m for 22-year-old Peterborough striker Dwight Gayle, who had only been signed from Dagenham & Redbridge six months earlier and was working as a carpenter while trawling his way through Essex non-league football ­before that.

The Daggers earned £1.5m from Gayle’s Selhurst Park move, due to a sell-on clause which has secured the League Two club’s medium-term ­future, Posh have made a killing with a cute piece of business and Palace reckon they may have unearthed the next Ian Wright – for half of the money they made from selling Wilfried Zaha to Manchester United.

This is a prime example of how the transfer market should work for the future of English football, but the Gayle deal is now a rare exception, something of a museum piece, as established Premier League clubs obsessively shop abroad.

Peterborough chairman Darragh MacAnthony may have an element of self-interest in talking up the prices of Football League ­players, but he was spot-on when he accused Premier League clubs of ‘snobbery’.

MacAnthony said: “Some of the Premier League scouts out there should hang their heads in shame. This boy was on their doorsteps and we pickpocketed ­everybody to sign him for 400 grand six months ago.

“When people say English league players are too expensive, it’s total nonsense. There is so much snobbery out there and it has to stop.”

Will such players only get you so far, though?

Well, the Celtic starting line-up on November 7 last season included four players recruited at no great expense from the English Championship – Kris Commons, Adam Matthews, Kelvin Wilson and Joe Ledley.

And from memory, Celtic beat a rather handy team that night. Red and blue stripes. Inverness Caledonian Thistle? No, that’s right, it was Barcelona.

There is plenty such talent out there, too, otherwise Norwich City would not have spent the past two seasons in mid-table in the Premier League, having recruited almost entirely from the lower leagues.

Yet there is a whole culture which has sprung up, exoticising foreign ­players and coaches, while patronising anything British.

Will David Moyes continue to buy British in his new job? (Image: PA)

This attitude becomes self-­perpetuating, the circle becoming more and more vicious, until somebody has the courage to break it.

Manchester United’s decision to ­appoint David Moyes, once of the English lower leagues as a player and manager, was a refreshing departure.

And would Moyes have become Old Trafford boss had he not recruited so wisely from the lower divisions – Sheffield United’s Phil Jagielka, Millwall’s Tim Cahill and Joleon Lescott of Wolves, who made Everton a £19m profit?

Let’s hope Moyes has the courage of his convictions and shops at home, from time to time, in his classy new surroundings.

Because he might just be the man to wield the sledgehammer on behalf of British footballers.